New York Anime Festival 2010

Crunchyroll

The Crunchyroll panel was hosted by brand manager Keith Kawamura, who introduced the site to the audience, including where it can be watched, an explanation of its subscription plan, and information in its new "Daily Deals" feature.

The site's announcement included a number of upcoming catalog additions:

• Lucky Star
• Cosplay Complex
• Demon Bane
• Magician's Academy

These and other titles will be announced more formally at a later date. Mobile Suit Gundam, Mobile Suit Z Gundam, and Mobile Suit Gundam 00 will stream on the site starting after this panel ends.

Next Kawamura talked about the site's current simulcasts, including The World God Only Knows, Sora no Otoshimono: Forte, Super Robot Taisen OG: The Inspector, Otome Yōkai Zakuro, Yumeiro Patisserie: Professional, Fortune Arterial, Squid Girl, Panty & Stocking and Garterbelt.

The panel then went into Q&A. Kawamura addressed Crunchyroll's announced manga program, only to say that there was no new information at this time. He also informed the audience that the Mobile Suit Gundam stream will feature the English-language dub (earlier in the day Bandai Entertainment announced a DVD release of the series featuring both the English dub and the original Japanese dub with English subtitles).

Asked whether Crunchyroll has considered working with fansub groups, Kawamura noted that some Japanese copyright holders may not be happy with that, and may be concerned that the fansub groups would upload the videos to free sites and circumvent the streaming that provides the copyright holders with income.

Kawamura confirmed that Crunchyroll would like to boost its video files up to 1080p videos but that they need more time to work on it. They would also like to add tracking (a visual indicator of how much of a video has buffered and is playable).

Asked why Crunchyroll aims to acquire simulcast rights for all anime shows rather than focusing on getting the "higher-curve" shows, Kawamura noted that they don't want to throw any fans by the wayside, but rather to represent and provide for all fans.